Fit for a King (3 page)

20

Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

21

"You
look more like forty-five," she sighed,
studying his hard, care-creased face.
“I’ll bet you
take five-hour vacations and
count your money every
night. You
have that look, you know." His eyebrows
shot up, and she wiggled hers.
"Rich and misera
ble?"

"I'm filthy rich, but I'm not miserable."

"Yes,
you are," she told him. "You just don't re
alize it. But don't
worry. Now that I'm around, I'll
save you from yourself. In no time you'll be
a new
man."

"I
like me fine the way I am," he said tersely,
glaring down at her.
"So don't pester me. I don't care
to be remodeled,
least of all by some bored textile
worker."

"I'm
a designer," she shot back.

"You
can't possibly be old enough." He patted her
on the head, the
first glimpse of real humor she'd seen
in him. "Go to bed, child."

"Mind you don't trip over
your long beard,
Grandpa," she called
after him.

He didn't
look back or say another word. He just
kept walking.

And that
had been the beginning of an odd friendship. In the months that followed,
Elissa had learned
precious few actual facts about her taciturn neighbor,
but she'd gleaned a great deal about his temperament.
His full name was
Kingston
, and no one
called him
King.
Except Elissa.
He spent most of his waking

hours
on
business. Although he traveled extensively,
his home base was
Jamaica
because
few people except those who really needed
to,
knew
how to get in
touch with him there. He liked his privacy and
avoided
the social gatherings that seemed de rigueur
for the Americans in
their exclusive part of
Montego
Bay
. He kept to
himself and spent his rare free time walking on the beach, alone and apparently
liking it.
He might have gone on for years that way. But Elissa
had saved
him from himself.

Although
she didn't trust most men, she instinc
tively trusted King.
He seemed totally uninterested in
her as a woman, and when weeks went by
without
his making a suggestive remark or a pass, she began
to feel
totally safe with him. That allowed her to in
dulge her fantasy of
being the sophisticated, worldly
kind of woman she liked to read about in
novels. It was an illusion, of course, but King didn't seem to
mind her
outrageous flirting and sometimes sugges
tive remarks. He
treated her much like a young girl,
alternately indulging and teasing her.
And that was fine with Elissa. She'd long since learned that she
wouldn't
fit easily into the modern world. She
couldn't bring herself to sleep with
a man just because
it was the fashion. And since most men she dated
expected
that courtesy, she simply withdrew. She
never took a date
home—not anymore, at least. There
had been a nice man when she was twenty. A real

22

Diana
Palmer

Fit for a
King

23

jewel
, she'd
thought—until she took him home to
meet Mom and Dad. She'd never seen him
again.

For all
her religious outlook on life, her parents
were characters. Her
father collected lizards, and her
mother was a special deputy with the sheriffs department.
Odd people.
Lovely but very odd.
Since
she'd given up on expecting tolerance
from the opposite sex, she couldn't imagine a male friend really
understanding her delightful family. So it was a
good
thing she'd decided to die a
virgin.

Fortunately,
King had no designs on her whatso
ever, so he was good company and a
hedge against other men when she was on the island. He was the
perfect
safe harbor. Not only that, but he needed a
little attention to
keep him from becoming a hermit.
And who better to draw him out than Elissa,
given
her somewhat evangelical background?

At first
she contented herself with leaving little
notes for him to
find, exhorting pithy things like "Too
much loneliness makes
a man odd" or "Sunstroke
can be hazardous to your health." She put the notes
on his front door, on the windshield of his car,
even
under the rock where he liked
to sit and watch the
sunset. From
there, she took bolder steps. She baked
things for him. She put flowers
on his doorstep.

Eventually,
he came over to tell her to stop—and
found her waiting for him with an
elaborate meal.
Clearly it was the last straw, and he gave up trying
to ignore
her. After that, he came to eat at least once

a
week, and
sometimes they walked on the beach to
gether. Despite her outgoing
approach, she was a little
wary of him at first, until he proved by his
attitude
that he
wasn't going to try to get her into the nearest
available bed. And then he became her friend. She totally relaxed with
him and looked forward to their
times
together. He seemed pleased enough with that
arrangement himself, talking to her as if she were a
sister.

When she
went back to the States to work, he gen
erously offered to keep Warchief. She'd
been de
lighted, and King had given the bird
a nice substitute
home. When he was out of the country on business,
he even hired a woman to look after the house and
the bird. For all his hardness, he had a soft
center—
if one looked closely
enough. He was still impatient
and demanding with most people—Elissa had
once had her ears curled listening to him chew out a sub
ordinate—but he seemed to tolerate her better than
he tolerated others.

The only puzzling thing about
him was his lack of
a love life. He was
devastatingly handsome and phys
ically
near perfect. At his age, she'd have expected
him to be married. But he wasn't and evidently never
had been.
He dated occasionally, but Elissa never
spotted
him bringing a woman home overnight. Even
in her innocence Elissa knew it was rather unusual
for a man who was so much a man to spend so much
time alone. She wondered about it frequently, and

24

Diana
Palmer

Fitfor a
King

25

once
she even
got up enough courage to quiz him on
the subject. But his face had closed
up, and he'd
changed
the subject. She hadn't asked again.

Despite
her innate curiosity, she was relieved that
he'd never once made a pass at her. She
had some
hang-ups from an experience that
her parents didn't
even know about,
thank God. One wild party, at
tended
without their knowledge, had cured her of any wanton imaginings. She'd barely
escaped with her in
nocence intact,
and she'd gleaned a very unpleasant, threatening picture of the aroused male.
She'd been careful ever since.

She was only grateful that her
parents weren't in
any danger of dropping in
at the Roper villa. If they'd seen her in King's bed... Then she laughed, remem
bering how they were. They knew her so well that
they'd have asked what
was the
joke
. How marvelous
having
parents like hers, idiosyncracies and all.

King was
due any minute, and Elissa's part in this practical joke was simply to lie back
and look loved.
She wasn't sure why he wanted to give that impression,
or to whom, but he'd once saved her from the
unwanted attention of
a very persistent insurance
salesman, so now she was saving him.
From some
thing.
Really,
though, he was going to owe her a steak
dinner for all this bother.

She heard
the front door open, and voices drifted
down the hall. She
recognized King's, and for one
wild second she let herself pretend that she
was wait-

ing
for him
as a lover. The thought didn't terrify her,
and that puzzled
her. In fact, her body began to tingle
in the oddest ways, and that
really
puzzled
her.

Then the
bedroom door opened, and King stared at her over the head of the most beautiful
blonde Elissa
had
ever seen.

The blonde wore a
look of helpless longing and unholy torment. And King's expression was a reve
lation as
he glanced down at her. For a face that rarely gave away a trace of emotion, it
was suddenly explicit
with tender interest. Who was the woman?
Elissa wondered. And why would King want to discourage
her when he was so
obviously attracted to her?

Elissa was
so confused that she almost forgot to
play her part. This vulnerability in
King was so ex
pected.
But there must be a reason he wanted that
lovely
woman with him to think he was involved with
someone else, and this was obviously no time to ask
questions.

"Well, hello,
darling," Elissa said in her best
husky voice. She
tugged the covers up demurely and
yawned delicately. "I fell
asleep again," she added
meaningfully, and she waited for the blonde to react

Fit for a King

27

The reaction was almost
instantaneous. "Oh!" The
woman
faltered, stopping beside King as if frozen to
the spot. She stared at Elissa with huge, soft eyes,
clearly struggling to find words, and her
delicate skin colored, making her even more beautiful.
"Ex-excuse
me."

"I didn't expect you to
still be here, Elissa," King said with a smile that was obviously forced.

Elissa
played her part to perfection, letting her eyes
droop sleepily.
"I'm sorry if I've overstayed my wel
come."

"Don't be absurd," he
replied. "There's no reason
you
shouldn't stay if you like. Bess, do you
mind...?" he asked the blonde. "There's a guest
bathroom just down the hall."

"I'll...I'll use that one, of course." She
looked to-

tally
flustered, Elissa noted sympathetically. "Excuse
me," she
whispered, her voice almost breaking. She
turned and nearly ran down the hall.

King closed
the door and leaned back against it,
his face without expression,
his
dark eyes looking at
Elissa without really
seeming to see her. He never
gave away much, but that hard face was
faintly pale
under
its rugged tan.

Elissa
climbed out of bed, oblivious to her state of
undress. He wasn't looking, anyway. He
paid very
little attention to her as a
rule, and if she'd wondered
why in
the past, she now had a suspicion. She went
to stand in front of him,
her head back,
her
eyes cu
rious.

"Okay,"
she said. "Why don't you tell me all
about it? I'm a clam
when I need to be, and you look
as if you need a friend pretty badly."

His jaw
tightened. He looked down into her blue
eyes, and she could
see his control waver, just for an
instant, before he got it back. "That's Bess," he
said
finally. "My brother's wife,"
he added significantly.
After a
pause, he continued tonelessly, "He'll be
along in an hour or so;
he's still in a business meet
ing."

She
remembered his mentioning Bobby and Bess, and she also remembered that he never
talked much
about them. Now she had a sneaking hunch she knew
why. Her
eyes narrowed as she took in his look of
utter dejection.